Church Unity And Engines That Drive It
Church unity has engines that drive it. Paul said, "I
beseech you therefore" and the "therefore" points back to all the rich
truth he has rehearsed. Because all that is true he thinks it naturally
follows that they would eagerly do what's needed to be done to protect
and nurture this wondrous unity. There's enough transforming and
life-bringing truth in the earlier chapters to make us rise to our feet
and become implacable enemies of chaos and derangement.
The sights and sounds of God as he works the destruction of walls and
barriers can fill us with an unceasing desire to do the same. With the
sweat, spit and blood streaking his face we watch him getting his
shoulder against the foundation of a wall we built out of our sin a wall
that stretched from Eden to Hell's gates. And if we asked him if it was
a tremendous task he'd undertaken he would say it was beyond our
imagining. And if we asked him if the cost to him would be great he'd
nod and if we asked him why he was doing it he would tell us it's
because his Father hates the wall and hates it because it keeps his
beloved world from him and from one another.
Poet, Robert Frost (in "Mending Wall") went with a neighbour to check
their adjoining wall. The friend thought good fences made good
neighbours. I can see that in a world where we demand not only our own
rights but the rights of others as well that that view makes sense. But
for those who believe a better world has begun and will come in fullness
one of these days the neighbour's view is still a limited and limiting
one. Beyond the neighbour's common sense Frost still believed:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
Later, after smiling at the thought of telling the neighbour that
fairies or elves keep wrecking the walls Frost muses to himself,
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall/ That wants it down."
Whatever Frost had in mind the Christian would say, "Someone there is
that doesn't love a wall/That wants it down." And as we watch the God
who came to us in and as Jesus Christ push and strain to the point of
exhaustion we finally hear the sound of the foundation cracking. It must
have echoed all the way to Milton's city of Pandemonium and heaven must
have thundered with applause. The thought that God thinks it is so
important to have the walls down might easily inspire us to get our own
shoulders to the foundation and give a prolonged shove. Because it
matters to him it will come to matter deeply to us who love and are
loved by him!